2/2
© Reuters. FILE PHOTO: The U.S Capitol seen at night from Pennsylvania Avenue in Washington, U.S., October 24, 2021. REUTERS/Sarah Silbiger/File Photo
2/2
By Susan Cornwell, Makini Brice and Steve Holland
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -President Joe Biden urged his fellow Democrats to put aside their differences and vote in the U.S. House of Representatives on Friday to pass a $1 trillion infrastructure bill, a pillar of his domestic policy agenda that won Senate approval in August.
But intraparty disagreement over the timing and scale of a separate $1.75 trillion social-policy and climate-change bill threatened to block action on either bill just days after Democrats suffered losses in closely watched state elections.
Biden was talking to House Democratic leaders as well as progressive and moderate lawmakers in an effort to come to a solution, a White House official said, adding, “He has been urging a vote tonight.”
Party leaders earlier said they would move forward with a vote on the infrastructure https://www.reuters.com/world/us/roads-bridges-airports-details-bidens-1-trillion-infrastructure-bill-2021-11-05 bill to revamp the nation’s roads, bridges and airports.
It was not clear whether that vote would succeed. The leader of the Democrats’ progressive wing said her group would not vote for that legislation until the party was also ready to vote on the larger https://www.reuters.com/business/cop/whats-bidens-175-trillion-build-back-better-package-2021-11-05 one.
“Welcome to my world. This is the Democratic Party,” House Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters after hours of closed-door negotiations. “We are not a lockstep party.”
Pelosi had planned to hold a vote on both bills on Friday, but action ground to a halt after centrist Democrats said they wanted to see a nonpartisan cost estimate for the social-policy and climate-change bill. That estimate, prepared by the Congressional Budget Office, could take weeks.
Pelosi teed up a procedural vote on the package but said final passage may still be weeks off.
Representative Pramila Jayapal https://www.reuters.com/world/us/negotiating-left-pramila-jayapal-now-center-joe-bidens-agenda-2021-10-28, leader of the 95-member progressive caucus, rejected the idea of voting on the infrastructure bill without knowing whether the six centrist holdouts would ultimately support the social spending package.
“If our six colleagues still want to wait for a CBO score, we would agree to give them that time – after which point we can vote on both bills together,” she said in a statement.
Weeks of bickering between moderate and progressive Democrats have held up the bills. Biden for the first time publicly called on the House to vote on the bills on Friday.
“I’m asking every House member – member of the House of Representatives – to vote ‘yes’ on both these bills right now,” Biden said.
Representative Jared Huffman, a House progressive, voiced skepticism that Democrats would be able to agree to vote on Friday.
“His request for trust would be accompanied by some pretty specific assurances,” Huffman said of Biden.
The two pieces of legislation include the biggest upgrade of America’s roads, bridges and airports in a generation and the largest expansion of social programs since the 1960s.
An affirmative vote would bolster the credibility of Biden’s pledge to halve U.S. greenhouse gas emissions from 2005 levels by 2030 during the U.N. climate conference https://www.reuters.com/business/cop taking place in Glasgow, Scotland.
AIM TO MOVE FORWARD
The party is eager to show it can move forward on the president’s agenda and fend off Republicans in the 2022 midterm elections in which Republicans will seek to regain control of Congress from the Democrats.
The House and Senate are both due to be out next week, which leaves them little time to meet the goal of passing the measures by the Thanksgiving holiday on Nov. 25. Congress also faces looming Dec. 3 deadlines to avert a politically embarrassing government shutdown and an economically catastrophic default on the federal government’s debt.
With razor-thin majorities in Congress and a united Republican opposition, Democrats need unity to pass legislation.
The infrastructure bill, which passed the Senate https://www.reuters.com/article/usa-biden-infrastructure-idTRNIL1N2PH1MA in August with 19 Republican votes, would fund a massive upgrade of America’s roads, bridges, airports, seaports and rail systems, while also expanding broadband internet service.
The “Build Back Better” package includes provisions on child care and preschool, eldercare, healthcare, prescription drug pricing and immigration.
Republicans uniformly oppose that legislation, casting it as a dramatic expansion of government that would hurt businesses.
“This is potentially a very black day for America,” said Republican Representative Glenn Grothman, who characterized the legislation’s child-care and preschool provisions as a “Marxist” effort to have the federal government raise children.
The nonpartisan U.S. Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the social-spending bill would raise $1.48 trillion in new tax revenue over the next decade, short of its $1.75 trillion cost.
Pelosi and other top Democrats have said that fails to account for increased tax enforcement and savings from lower prescription drug prices.
Source: Investing.com
